


she-wolf

by unhappy_matt



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Genre: Literary References, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, Staring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23683756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unhappy_matt/pseuds/unhappy_matt
Summary: Maybe Elio will say something to him.He might not say a word to Oliver for the entire afternoon—for as long as they’re together here in the garden—but maybe he will. And it’s this, Oliver realizes, it's this that keeps him anchored right where he is, like the weight of a boulder.He can’t leave, not as long as there’s this glimmering flame of the possibility that Elio might talk to him.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	she-wolf

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [la lupa](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23534095) by [unhappy_matt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unhappy_matt/pseuds/unhappy_matt). 



> The English translation of my one-shot "la lupa", originally written in Italian.  
> As I translated my work on my own, I apologize and claim full responsibility for everything that may be wonky or weird. I love to make things difficult for myself because my style in Italian is very flowery, and it's complicated to turn it into decent English. 
> 
> Thank you so much to the lovely readers who showed interest in my fic. I hope this can serve to make it more accessible.

The afternoon heat is scorching. It sticks to his skin like a soaked blanket, biting into his back and his nape.

Oliver shifts on the stone perimeter of the pool, bending his outstretched legs and moving his feet into the cool water.

He closes his eyes, for a moment, behind his sunglasses.

The deafening buzz of cicadas. It’s a familiar sound, but here, in the most absolute stillness and tranquility, it seems to swallow and drown out everything else.

The Perlman mansion behind him is silent, asleep. The professor and his wife took their leave to rest and they won’t be showing up until the temperature cools down.

A splash in the water prompts him to open his eyes. Oliver shields himself with his hand and follows Elio’s fair, slender form swimming back and forth, with quick, cutting strokes.

Oliver thumbs along the paper sheets in his lap, smoothing down the corners of the pages. The green tinge of the nature around him is mirrored by the green of the water’s surface, with a mesmerizing reverberation. The scent of flowers and ripe fruit is sickeningly sweet; it clings to him, lingering inside his nostrils. It’s the smell he breathes in at night when he can’t sleep. The fragrance that keeps him company at the crack of dawn, when he sometimes gets up to write, inside his borrowed room.

The room next to the one where Elio sleeps.

Oliver re-reads the last line he wrote and erases it.

Elio touches one end of the pool and pulls himself up with a thrust, arching his back. Sunlight clings to his dark hair, droplets of water dripping from his locks. Elio sits, swaying his feet. His skin looks like the polished marble of statues.

He never looks in Oliver’s direction. He arrived shortly after Oliver, marching across the grass, only deigning Oliver of a muttered, half-hearted greeting. He slammed his backpack and a pile of books on the table nearby and started swimming; it’s been nearly half an hour.

Close and far away.

Oliver sets down his idle notes. The letters cross and overlap under his eyes, mocking his attempt at gathering his thoughts. He’s distracted, tired, almost, despite the slow, lax pace of his days here.

He could go back to his room, if he truly wanted to focus. A small voice inside his head, vaguely irritated, slightly spiteful, pricks his nape and whispers that he chose this spot first; he has no obligation to leave.

And Elio doesn’t _have_ to converse with him, but a polite host _could_ do so…

Elio dives in again—he lets himself fall, more than jump, plunging facedown like a corpse, and for a few moments he sinks underneath the tiny rippling waves. Oliver follows the shards of colors of Elio’s body underwater. He contemplates the silence, after, imagining the strain of the breath caged inside Elio’s chest.

Elio resurfaces, gasping.

Oliver looks away. He gropes around for the book he abandoned by his side and opens it, holding it upright so that the cover is easily visible.

It’s a book he borrowed from professor Perlman’s library, a collection of _novelle_ written by Giovanni Verga, _“Vita dei campi”_. Perlman told him Verga is often part of Italian students’ program in school.

Oliver knows the author, a little, but his recollections are limited. Verga’s Italian isn’t always easy, and Oliver resumes reading at a slow pace, once in a while resorting to the dictionary he’d packed in his suitcase.

Maybe Elio will ask him what he’s reading.

Elio asks him nothing at all.

After reaching the opposite extremity of the pool, he climbs up, shaking his head like a puppy drenched in mud, and he plops down on the lawn, directly on the grass, with an arm over his face.

His knees are bent, his thighs lazily parted. Oliver catches a glimpse of a portion of Elio’s chest; the brown nipples standing out against water drops trickling down pale skin; the thin dark hair under his armpits.

Elio props himself up on his elbows, looking up at the sky. His throat, bent backwards and bared, could be a shield, or surrender.

Oliver’s fingertips press on the corner of the page hard enough to almost tear the paper.

Maybe Elio will say something to him.

He might not say a word to Oliver for the entire afternoon—for as long as they’re together here in the garden—but maybe he will. And it’s _this_ , Oliver realizes, this is what keeps him anchored right where he is, like the weight of a boulder.

He can’t leave, not as long as there’s this glimmering flame of the possibility that Elio might talk to him.

A gust of warm wind blows sideways in his direction. Before Oliver can react, the breeze sweeps away his notes, lifting them up in tiny, swaying whirls and driving them toward the water.

“Shit.” Oliver swears under his breath, jumping up and reaching out to try and catch as many sheets as he can. He leans closer to the water and manages to get a hold of two pages before they escape; one has already turned into a wobbling raft headed toward the center of the pool, plunging and disappearing. Another wrinkled up page has landed on the grass, not far away.

_“Tieni.”_

Oliver winces at the word uttered in Italian, as if under a touch on his shoulder.

He lifts his eyes. Standing next to him, Elio hands him another one of his pages.

Elio’s slender arm, stretched out in the space between them, reveals the path traced by blue-green veins underneath his skin.

A blade of sunlight passes through Elio’s cutting gaze, lighting up irises streaked with green and gold underneath dark, long lashes.

_“Grazie,”_ Oliver replies in Italian, softly, careful, intuitively mirroring the language used by the other.

Elio’s expression is not kind; his manners are not kind. But there’s kindness in his gesture: in having retrieved something that is important to Oliver.

Oliver lifts his hand. Their fingers don’t touch; for a single instant, they hold on to two sides of the page marked by Oliver’s handwriting. The paper is dry, except for one corner that got soaked; it’s salvageable, at any rate.

Elio does not smile, but he lets go of the page, who remains in Oliver’s hand, and gives him a curt nod. 

_"Grazie,”_ Oliver repeats, straightening his shoulders. Slowly he puts his notes back in order.

Elio withdraws, with a moment’s delay, with what could look somewhat like hesitation. His body shifts in slow motion through the heated air.

His gaze flicks up to Oliver’s face—his tongue traces parted lips—and then Elio turns around, and he walks away, heading back to the pool.

Above their heads the wind blows again, gently shaking the treetops.

Oliver stands, with his notes gathered in his hands. His hearts leaps in his throat like a drum struck with full force. 

He bites his tongue, lowering his eyes, and kicks a small heap of soil.

With his head underwater, Elio can no longer see him.

Oliver lifts his chin, and smiles at the burning sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations words for the Italian words present in the text: 
> 
> 1\. novelle: I know the English plural "novellas" can be used, but in this case I found it more fun to use the Italian term. 
> 
> 2\. "Tieni": "Here." It's a rather curt and possibly slightly rude way of addressing someone. 
> 
> 3\. "Grazie": "Thank you."  
> -  
> Literary reference: the fic is titled after "La lupa", "the she-wolf", one of Verga's tales that is present in the collection Oliver is reading.  
> It's a brutal story of lust and tragedy that takes place among the fields, on a torrid summer.  
> The "she-wolf" is a woman ostracized by her community for being openly sexual and aggressively seductive. She falls in love with a man who works the fields and relentlessly pursues him, ready to go to any length to have him.


End file.
